On Marriage and Lovers
by Stri-scia
Summary: The one where both Harry and Draco are married for convenience, and then Ginny and Astoria get together and they get into each other's lives. Harry/Draco, side Ginny/Astoria.


A/N

So this is mostly a plot bunny because I'm just so taken with my thesis that I can't write anything more than that, but if you want to make a story out of it, you're welcome! Just, please, let me know and credit me :)

Their marriage had always been one of convenience, Harry knew.

Ginny loved him, and Harry loved her, but their feelings were fraternal, not romantic. And yet, everybody expected them to get together at the end of the war, and they'd done that; they'd _discussed_ that, the way they grew apart because of the year Harry had spent looking for Horcruxes and Ginny had spent learning a lot about Dark Arts and organising the resistance at Hogwarts. They didn't resent each other because of that—at least, not a couple years down the line—and Harry had always wanted to be part of a big family, and he knew he was already, but not completely, and Ginny could offer him that. And what he could offer Ginny was a quiet life in a cottage in the countryside, with a garden outside their house and a friend to come back when she was off Quidditch practice, that is.

It was a quiet life, a nice life after all. Harry didn't really miss the passion, he'd had enough of strong feelings for his life, he thought, and Ginny loved their house, and loved their evenings spent together playing Muggle table games, or even roleplay table games when Ron, Hermione, Luna and Neville came around and Hermione was the dungeon master for all their fake adventures. Much, much better than the real adventures or even the real life where he had to be at stuffy events for the Ministry and so on.

Ginny was the breadwinner, and Harry only worked on their garden, so they could have fresh fruits and vegetables at their table every day. They mostly went out in the muggle world when they wanted, and kept quiet. Only their inner friend circle knew about what kind of marriage they had, and they kept quiet about it.

It wasn't an open marriage. He didn't want to fall in love, and Ginny wanted to focus on her career without any distraction, so the situation was pretty much settled.

Or so Harry thought.

Ginny came home one evening, when Harry was making dinner. She didn't wait for him to talk, to greet her, and she said without preambles that she'd met someone. "A female someone," she added, before Harry couldn't speak.

"Well, if she's discreet and you want to do it, why not?" Harry was confused for a while, then he wasn't.

The someone Ginny had met was Astoria Greengrass in Malfoy. Tall, blonde, ethereal, and with enough strength in her legs to crush Ginny's head, or so she said. Ginny had pretty muscle-y legs too, so Astoria should be pretty strong, for her to give this opinion of Astoria.

And so, Astoria became a fix in their life. She was discreet, she was polite enough not to disturb Harry, she came often enough at their house that Harry knew what was her favourite dish, and she was agreeable enough to play Risk with them, although she bowed out gracefully from Trivial Pursuit when she saw that it was all Muggle culture.

Everybody else thought of Astoria as Ginny's best friend, Harry thought of Astoria as the beautiful woman who sometimes slept in Ginny's room, and who some other times took Ginny home with her.

And who one time said she would like to take her husband with her, so they could have a nice dinner and Harry didn't have to feel like the third wheel.

(Harry didn't feel like a third wheel. If he did, he went into his room to read, and trusted Ginny to put good Privacy Charms on her door when they went to bed. But honestly, he didn't feel like a third wheel. Especially, he didn't think that putting Malfoy with him would have made him feel less like a third wheel.)

Astoria had always been agreeable and polite, though. She accepted to stay and watch them play d&d when their friends came over, and she accepted even—at Hermione's request, no less—the invite to make a character sheet and start to play. So Harry said yes, and inquired on Malfoy's favourite dish so he could make something.

And when Malfoy came, he was stiff and tight-lipped, and Ginny looked at Harry and they both rolled their eyes, but they played host like they always did, with an intimacy that comes with being friends and cohabitating for so many years, and by the end of the dinner, Malfoy was a bit more loose, his cheek flushed because of the wine, and accepted to play Go with Harry, because he didn't have cards or chess, and Go was as good as chess when it came to strategy.

Astoria and Ginny went to bed early that evening, and Harry and Malfoy opened another wine bottle.

"Do you think it's weird that my wife is with your wife?"

Malfoy looked at him, eyes unfocused. "No," he said in the end. "I'm gay, and it was always going to be a marriage of convenience."

Harry just nodded, and they went on playing Go.

They started going on dates, Astoria and Ginny, in Muggle places but always dragging Harry and Malfoy with them, because someone could have seen, and it was better to just play double date. Harry found easier and easier to talk with Malfoy, a bit because of maintaining appearances, a bit because he was bored if he didn't speak with anyone during meals.

Malfoy was… different. He admitted without problems his fascist past, and admitted that reading the right books had changed him, and he still loved his parents despite everything, but he didn't want anything to do with their ideals. He and Astoria were thinking of moving out of the Manor, he told Harry, because he couldn't really live there anymore.

He said that with a serious expression, so different than the mirth Harry saw in his eyes when he searched it. Harry believed him.

They didn't talk about Malfoy's sexuality, not really, and then they did all of a sudden. They were playing Scrabble one evening, and were drinking a bottle of wine (Gewurtztraminer, because Malfoy had insisted). They'd been discussing on the validity of the word zucchini, because they were using the Oxford dictionary so it had to be British English and Harry didn't care if Malfoy lost his right to the precious Z and—

"Do you care that I'm bent?" Malfoy had his eyes fixed on the scrabble board, and apparently couldn't take them away from it.

Harry sighed. "I've made plenty obvious that I'm not," he said, then added, "Draco," as an afterthought. "Plus, I'm bisexual myself."

Malfoy was watching him, eyes wide, and then nodded, expression serious and thoughtful. "Okay," he said. "The Bent Band."

And the Bent Band it was (including when Hermione lectured them both for an hour about the importance of not using slurs, and Harry could make her stop with his counterargument for

reclaiming slurs, and she resumed her DM-ing, a squint in her eyes).

Surprisingly, or maybe not, Draco was also plenty agreeable with the other friends. He'd apparently had a long correspondence with Luna already, so it was easy for him to fit into their group, almost as easy as it had been for Astoria.

(Although, Tori didn't have a history with the others, so there was that.)

Harry and Draco started to date almost without realising. It was easy, because Ginny and Astoria were together, and it was nice, because they already had something to talk to, and it was… liberating, yes, because there hadn't been any strong feelings. Just a tranquil sliding into habit, cuddles on the couch sometimes, and then one evening Draco was about to go and looked at him with big eyes.

"Do you want a goodnight kiss?" His voice was light and he showed no nervousness. Harry smiled.

"Why not?" And he kissed Draco for a few minutes, and saw him floo out with his cheeks even more red than when he drank wine.

Astoria and Ginny didn't really comment at first, then they did just to tell them that it was nice, having them together, so they could seriously do double dates. After that, they went a lot walking in the park, Notice-me-not Charms on them so they could hold hand and kiss in peace, and Harry taught Draco about all the wild plants you could eat, and Draco told him about all the wild plants you could make potions with. (He always said, "it's something that you should have learnt on your second year, _why_ didn't you?" and Harry just shrugged and smiled.)

Their sex life was something calm too. The first time they had sex, it had been weird, maybe, because Harry had never bottomed, despite those flings with Oliver Wood and Cedric Diggory ("What the fuck, are you shitting me?"), and Draco apparently had the same experiences with Blaise Zabini and Marcus Flint ("Come on, he looked like a bunny in school").

But it had worked, and now when Ginny and Astoria went into Ginny's room, Draco and Harry went into Harry's room, and had slow sex for the better part of the night, looking at each other when they did so.

Having Draco as a lover wasn't that different from having him as a friend, if not for the fact that he was extremely cuddly, and gave him random presents. It was nice, calm, and Harry was sure he could never feel like that again in his life.

Or so he thought.

Ginny came to him and Draco one morning, interrupting the house renovation. (Draco and Astoria had finally decided to move out of the Manor, and since the relationship they both had with Harry and Ginny was serious, and a year had passed, they just decided to make the house bigger and add a bit of wizardspace, and they started working on it.)

"I have a favour to ask you both," she said.

Harry lowered his wand, waiting.

"I want a child," said Ginny. "Tori is not ready for a pregnancy, but I am. I'm not asking you for sex," she added, when she saw that Harry opened his mouth, and Harry acquiesced. "There is a spell that can make me pregnant without having sex with you, but, uh, the semen has to come from an orgasm during sex."

They did it. It was fairly easy, and Draco made him come by pumping steadily into him, and then put his come into a vial and sent it to Ginny's room. He then proceeded to make Harry come another time, and then came all over Harry.

Harry and Ginny's first child was named James Sirius. He was a little bundle of joy, and friends and family wanted to see him all the time. Ginny nursed him, alright, but the rest of them did everything else, and Harry didn't want to say that Jamie had only two parents.

It was four, and he was growing up strong and happy, just like a true family can make a child be.

Harry brought James on adventures in the garden, finding snails and making them a home with lettuce leaves, so Jamie could watch them move. And Draco bought him all the toys he could get, and Astoria read so many recipes books to make Jamie eat only the best, and Ginny read him bedtime stories, and everybody got up when Jamie was crying, and Jamie slept a night in Ginny and Astoria's room, and a night in Draco and Harry's room.

It was not much later when Ginny and Astoria asked for another child. Each.

This time the come affair was a bit more difficult, because they had to stop twice during sex, and bringing back up the mood was difficult after that, but nonetheless it was perfect, knowing that they were making two babies, and that they'll have little people to care about in nine months. It was perfect.

(They actually had to try a bit more for Tori, because she couldn't get pregnant the first time.)

Harry wanted to name his second child Albus Severus, and he actually had a fight with both Draco and Ginny. Draco argued that Dumbledore had treated him like cattle, and fuck the Greater Good, and Ginny argued that Snape was a fuckboy that had become a Death Eater because he was friendzoned.

Well.

There was that.

Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy and Arthur Rubeus Potter were born in 2006, at a month of distance from one another. Two bundle of joy, this time, and Harry felt like never before when he was holding the two of them at the same time.

Jamie did have some fits, but mostly with four parents they could convince him to share, and it was easier to get a lot of attention when two people were with him, and the other two with Arthur and Scorpius.

Their had their cottage, they had their kids (five, in a bit, because Ginny wanted to try for a daughter), they had their garden, and Harry had never felt more happy with his life.

All was well.

A/N

Aaaand well, I hope you liked it! If you did, reviews are greatly appreciated :D I know I changed Albus' name, but I'm honestly... not a fan of that name, so I just decided to avoid it. Harry will his dog and his owl Albus and Severus, I think.


End file.
